Chapter One
“Death to all intruders!”
Ra barely blinked as a blade swung down the side of his face, close enough to give him a shave. But his eyes widened, just slightly, as his brand-new iPhone was decimated across the middle, the top half flying four feet away and landing on the grass. Ignoring the sword wielder for the moment, Ra flicked his finger, reversing the actions of the previous ten seconds, and restoring his phone to its original state. Of course, the call he was on was gone.
Opening his messenger app, Ra painstakingly picked out a text, frowning as he kept scanning the tiny keyboard to find each letter – English language keyboards were laid out in such an unusual fashion. Apologies to you and Egan, he wrote. My phone suffered a sword decimation. Don’t tell Zeus – he’ll have a fit. Will call you later. Only after he’d hit send, still feeling a sense of pride when he did so, did Ra put his phone carefully in his robe pocket and glare at his protector, Seth.
“Was that absolutely necessary?”
The Egyptian God of the deserts, foreign lands, thunderstorms and eclipses was a ruggedly handsome man with a very narrow mindset. His long dark hair was tossed around his weathered face, as if he’d ridden ten miles on a horse across the desert, but his ice blue eyes shone. “I heard foreign voices coming from the vicinity of your person. It’s my job to protect you.”
“I was talking on my phone.”
Seth sneered. “You were held in a trance, enthralled by gibberish and images coming from that evil silver slab, which even now you hide about your person.” He stepped closer, staring into Ra’s eyes. “Have you been possessed by an evil djinn? Do you need me to rid you of the slab? Can you even talk about it, or does it have you under its evil spell? Blink once for yes and twice for no, if you can’t get the words past your throat.”
“I am not freaking possessed.” Swiping his hand through the air, Ra zapped Seth out of his personal space. “I was video calling with Paulie. Egan took his first steps today. The pictures you could see were coming from his phone. Surely you recognized the big stone fireplace behind him on the screen. We’ve both been to their house.”
Seth stuck his long straight nose in the air and folded his arms across his chest, his sword still swinging from his left hand. “I would not allow myself to be enthralled with an inanimate object. You stare into it for hours and have nothing to show for it.”
“I do not.” Well, maybe a few hours but Ra didn’t have to admit that to Seth. “You had no idea how much I had to go through to get this. First, a three-hour lecture from Zeus about the attributes of every different kind of phone there is before he’d allow me to have this one. Then I had to suffer through a further two days’ worth of his cursing and swearing, put downs about this realm and insults referring to my technical inadequacy as he taught me to make the power blocks necessary to get internet here. But it was all worth it. This phone is super smart. I can ask it any question and it can tell me all the secrets of the world.”
“You know the secrets of the world.” Seth threw up his hands, his sword glinting in the sun. “You’ve been around since the beginning of time.”
“I’m talking about the modern world.” Ra refused to be ruffled. He found his new phone fascinating. Paulie had asked him if he’d found an app called YouTube yet, and he couldn’t wait to try it after Paulie insisted he watch a video about a squirrel and a wrecking ball. “It’s time this realm moved into the twenty-first century and that means embracing new technologies and gadgets.”
“Time has no meaning on our great realm,” Seth scoffed. “The sun shines, stars burn out, seas could rise and fall, and it would make no difference to us. The desert sands will still cover everything when time is done.”
“They’d better bloody not, especially since those internet blocks aren’t a fan of sand, and for your information, the passing of time makes a difference to me.” Ra stood up, his robes falling to the ground. “I refuse to allow this realm to wallow in the dark ages. I’m also not going to argue with you about this. My realm, my decisions. But for now, change your clothes. You attacked my phone with a sword – the phone was a gift from Zeus.”
“My lord?” Seth glanced down at his bare chest, and flowing pants. “These clothes are suitable for anything you would have me do on this realm.”
“We’re not staying on this realm. We’re going to walk among the mortals.” Ra’s smirk remained even as he clicked his fingers, reverting to what Zeus called his wanna-be student persona. Sure, Ra was shorter as a human than when on his own realm, and maybe he did prefer to dress in jeans and t-shirts, but they were so comfortable. His boots were handcrafted from the finest soft leather and were almost as easy to wear as his sandals. Besides, Ra thought with a grin, Zeus is a fine one to talk – in his human form he looks like a Fae.
Flicking his dark hair off his face, Ra quirked his eyebrow at his reluctant protector who hadn’t moved. “I gave you a direct order.”
“You can’t force me to go down there.” Seth shook his head. “My place is here, protecting you as you oversee this realm.”
“You attacked my phone while I was using it.” Ra pointed to his sharp cheek bone. “I felt the breath of your blade.”
“And you didn’t even blink. I will take any punishment you deem suitable to make up for the phone you fixed not five seconds after I decimated it, but I see no reason to walk among them.” Seth turned away, looking over at the trees. “Earth is crowded. People jostle each other with no respect. And you can never take a clean breath thanks to all those exhaust fumes coming from those contraptions they ride around in.”
“The call you interrupted was from Paulie asking me if I’d check in with their little investigator team – the wolf shifter Wesley and his demon mate, Castor. They are on earth – we’re going to earth,” Ra explained with a patience he didn’t feel.
Seth’s frown lines deepened. “You said young Paulie was sharing details of Egan’s first steps.”
“Well, of course the conversation progressed after he made his request. Sheesh.” Ra shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt to have a friendly conversation with the man. He’s the mate of Zeus and Egan is an adorable youngster. Of course, Paulie is going to be proud of what the little one is doing, and he wanted to share his excitement with me. I felt honored.”
“Yes, well, there’s too much of that going on as well.” Seth could be as stubborn as a camel when he wanted to be. “Respected gods from every pantheon are finding mortal mates and breeding like rabbits as though that were an achievement. We can only be thankful the Fates respected us enough to leave us out of their little schemes, as well they should.”
“It is not every pantheon.” Ra laughed despite his impatience to get moving. “The Norse gods have been touched briefly through Thor, and there have been a few mates found among the ancient Greek gods like Poseidon, Hades and Zeus. And true, then there’s the ancient one Silvanus, and Owen with his ties to the Native American Indian nations, but that’s all. You know yourself, there are hundreds, if not thousands more gods the Fates could choose from, including you. Personally, I hope the Fates do turn their eyes in my direction. I long to have a mate of my own and I’m not the only one with dreams like that. Helios was saying only the other day that he’s actively looking too since Abraxas found his cute little human Jordan. Having a mate is an amazing gift. It means the Fates haven’t forgotten us.”